Individual Users on Windows XP?

Question

My question is about adding individual users to your "sign on" page for windows xp. You know how each person in your household can sign onto windows with their own name and password to have their own programs and mail and faves, etc... My question is does this take up extra space on your computer? If so is it alot or very little to notice. I was going to do this with my husband and I but he thinks it will take up more space and slow our computer down.

Answer 1

It will not take up any more space and is a good thing to do.

Answer 2

Usually each individual account by itself won't take up to much space, a few megs most likely. It's when you start filling your account up with files that it begins to take up space. So chances are unless you plan to fill your folders up with music and videos you really won't notice another use account.

And as for slowing the computer down that's not too likely. No more of a slowup then say adding the same amount of files to your existing system.

Answer 3

by itself, it does not use too much space to make a difference in speed.
may i suggest, though, that if you both have extensive music files, then put them all in one directory, Shared Documents/MY Music....have the media player set the library up using that destination only, it should by default. that reduces multiple files of the same name and make the media player easier to access the files.
same goes for shared pictures, like family pictures. place them all the in shared documents folder/my pictures....of course, here you can make sub-folders to organize them.
rule of thumb, any files that you share, access them from the same directory.
keep your own documents, files, folders, pictures, what not in your own My Document folder.
when naming a file, use these rules: use lower-case letters and numbers only, no spaces, use the Underline instead to separate words. this will help your computer access files faster...even when running a virus scan, spyware/adware removal program, they will run faster, as can speed through easy characters. just because windows uses spaces and other characters, don't mean, you should, most of those are converted during file searches.
another rule of thumb.....using the Switch user feature only when needed. if you don't plan on getting back on for several hours or so, go ahead and log off so that the other user's account won't have to worry about active files from your account, especially those that run automatically in the background.

ps....always, clean your files..... CCleaner is a great cleaner for the computer and is very easy to use. but, you have to run it on each user account to benefit, i run it at least once a week on every user.

CCleaner is a free download with no spyware or adware. you can get more information at http://ccleaner.com

Answer 4

Go to Control Panel and open User Accounts to create individual user accounts.

Yes, it takes up some disk space. But not much give the size of disk drives used in computers today.

Have fun but be safe.

Answer 5

By creating another user in Windows XP does not take space, because it only saves their password and just a few folders.

Creating a user doesn't take more than 2MB, space is only used when you save files or download programs :)

Answer 6

I have myself and my two sons as individual users on my computer and I haven't noticed a slow down. It would depend on how many big programs you each intend to download onto it, I suppose. But if you only used one account and put that stuff on one account, it would be working at the same rate anyway. You might as well seperate them and be more organized.

Answer 7

jimjones3 is right.

Every profile you create WILL take space. I've seen profiles up to 2 gigs, but that includes the person's mydocuments folders, email folders, saved crap and personal settings.

But I wouldn't let that stop you from doing it, it just means you need to make sure you have enough space on your hard drive.

As far as slowing things down, unless you have a crappy computer, the impact is minimal.

Answer 8

Yes, when you create a new user they get a new profile. This means a whole new set of My Documents (Including My Photos, My Videos, etc..) and a separate set of Temporary Internet Files and other system files that are part of the profile. It should be about 100-200MB you would need to begin...

Answer 9

Each profile does take up some additional space, but not a whole lot. Most hard drives have plenty of space.

Answer 10

it slows takes up extra space. windows wll create new user settings , folders and etc for that new user. whether it takes up more space depends on the user's usage.

i think it slows down the PC too.

Answer 11

does it take up extra space?
yes, creating an individual account diffinitely occupies space but its very little... if you want to see how much space it takes double click on my computer then open c:\ then, click documents and setting.. then right click on the name of the user then properties, you can see how much space it occupies...
take note user accounts, takes extra space depending on how much files he/she saves.

advantage for creating user accounts:
: organization
: privacy
: canyour own desktop settings

I suggest to crete individual accounts